To criticize the style in this way is to overlook the fact that the narrator of Maud is mad – Tennyson’s original title was “Maud or Madness” and he drew attention to the parallel with Hamlet. The entire poem-sequence is an attempt to penetrate the processes of a deranged mind. This could hardly have been expressed in the measured tones of “In Memoriam” or the steadily unfolding narrative of “Idylls of the King”. The Hamlet parallel is fundamental since Tennyson’s narrator, too, at times feigns madness within madness, and is at his most deranged when apparently at his most sane, as in the final illusion that he can return to sanity by joining the army and going to war. The language is “overwrought” only to the extent that Shakespeare’s language in Hamlet is “overwrought”.
Needless to say, I cannot agree with Nick that “Somervell's significant achievement … is to ameliorate that hot-house excess and instead draw the listener into a powerful and effective narrative - without doubt the song settings bring greater depth and humanity to the original verses”. On the contrary, I believe that, pleasing though the Somervell cycle undoubtedly is in its fluent melodiousness, it seriously diminishes the range and force of Tennyson’s original. Rather, I would compare Somervell’s achievement with that of Ambroise Thomas and his librettist, who topped and tailed Hamlet to provide a very pleasant evening at the opera.
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